essentially, I'm looking at flipping "homework" and "teaching" in our classes. The students will be responsible for content info at home. this can be in the form of text reading, accessing teacher blogs to find links to video clips or teacher notes, etc.
the student will then arrive to class the next day to find a short assessment that measures content understanding. the remainder of class is then used for practice and reteaching. students who demonstrate understanding will be used as peer tutors during the class period.
this SHOULD reduce the hours of homework time and grading involved in normal school settings. it also shifts the role of "knowledge collection" to the student. daily grades SHOULD dramatically improve. think about how many times a student goes home, doesn't understand what's being taught, wastes an entire night, then is behind the next day. Now you have to take time out of TODAY's class to fix YESTERDAY'S situation.
Under my proposal, the wasted time should disappear. Students can ask questions via the blog page. Parents now have visual confirmation on what their child should be doing each evening. Students without internet access would have to have a folder where a hard copy blogpage is printed out for them to take home each evening. This would be their "homework folder".
this SHOULD reduce the hours of homework time and grading involved in normal school settings. it also shifts the role of "knowledge collection" to the student. daily grades SHOULD dramatically improve. think about how many times a student goes home, doesn't understand what's being taught, wastes an entire night, then is behind the next day. Now you have to take time out of TODAY's class to fix YESTERDAY'S situation.
Under my proposal, the wasted time should disappear. Students can ask questions via the blog page. Parents now have visual confirmation on what their child should be doing each evening. Students without internet access would have to have a folder where a hard copy blogpage is printed out for them to take home each evening. This would be their "homework folder".
This sounds like a really interesting idea. In a high school setting, it puts the responsibility of learning on the student and demonstration of knowledge is done regularly in class. Students would be able to tap into a large database of educational resources for learning. My biggest concern is that students would not engage in the learning process. What happens when students aren't making the commitment to learning at home? I can envision a student that says, "I don't have homework" because in their mind they don't. For awhile, they might be okay, but once material starts to get beyond their background knowledge, what happens? How do you ensure that all students will want to participate in this kind of learning environment? I think it would be great for students that are motivated to learn on their own, but you will have to deal with students that want to be "spoon fed" information. Keep us posted on the outcomes! I would love to teach a class that is as self-directed as this.
ReplyDeleteRight now, I'm planning on using a blog page to get to the students what they should be doing each evening. A lot of times, it will be "read this", "study that" as we deal with the growing pains. My high school is very small (36 kids 9-12th grade) and several students don't have internet access, so we're not quite ready to "fly" yet. But we'll experiment with dvd copies that can go home, flash drives, etc. along with printed hard copies as ways to reach the non-internet kids and see what works the best. I'm looking forward to it!
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